Railway and Render are the two names that come up every time someone asks where to deploy a side project in 2026. Both deploy from Git in minutes — but they bill in completely different ways.
Railway meters everything per second on top of a plan fee; Render sells fixed-size instances you can budget. That one difference decides which is cheaper for your app.
| Railway | Render | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Per-second usage + plan fee ($5 Hobby) | Fixed per-instance price |
| Free tier | $1/mo usage credit (permanent); $5 one-time trial | Yes — sleeps after 15 min idle |
| Entry paid cost | $5/mo Hobby (includes $5 usage) | $7/mo Starter web service |
| Managed Postgres | Ordinary service, draws on the same credit pool | From $7/mo (1 GB); free tier expires |
| Scale-to-zero | No — idle services keep billing | No — but free tier sleeps (cold starts) |
| Best for | Spiky workloads, full-stack projects, fast DX | Predictable budgets, demos, prototypes |
Push to deploy: the simplest PaaS for full-stack apps.
Free plan ($1/mo usage credit); Hobby $5/mo (includes $5 usage); Pro $
Try Railway →Heroku's spiritual successor, without the surprise bill.
Free tier (sleeps when idle); Starter web services from $7/mo; managed
Try Render →Railway for speed and spiky workloads; Render for predictable budgets and free demos. For a small always-on app with a database, expect ~$10–20/mo on either — the meter just arrives differently.
Similar: Railway's $5 Hobby fits a tiny app inside its credit; Render's $7 Starter is always on. Once you add a database, budget $10–20/mo on either.
Neither truly. Railway bills for every second a service exists; Render's free tier sleeps but paid instances stay warm. For real scale-to-zero, look at Fly.io Machines.
Railway Pro is per workspace ($20/mo), Render Pro is $25/mo — both flat, unlike Vercel's per-seat pricing. Pick on workflow, not price.